Teac Corporation

Satoshi Nakamura

Hiroshi Tsuyuguchi

Tsuyoshi Osawa

Sadao Yabuki

A flexible magnetic disk drive with a built-in USB interface is disclosed. A disk sensor produces an output that, in the event of a change from one disk to another during a SUSPEND state of a SUSPEND/RESUME signal, remains indicative of disk absence from the moment said one disk was unloaded to, at the earliest, the moment the SUSPEND/RESUME signal subsequently gains a RESUME state, for power-saving purposes. In order to enable the computer to know the occurrence of the disk change immediately upon resumption of disk drive operation, the disk sensor output is sampled approximately at the beginning and end of each SUSPEND state, and immediately after the beginning of each RESUME state, of the SUSPEND/RESUME signal. Six different possible histories of disk loading and unloading past each SUSPEND state are ascertainable from every three disk sensor output samples. Each such renewable history datum is stored on a memory in the interface, for delivery to the computer on demand.

Disk sensor power system for sampling output signal of disk sensor at predetermined moments related to power saving state

A flexible magnetic disk drive is disclosed which is linked to a computer via a universal serial bus interface having firmware held on a read-only memory. In order to facilitate the upgrading of the firmware, an electrically erasable, programmable ROM is employed for firmware storage. Each new firmware version is issued in the form of a flexible magnetic disk which may be loaded in the disk drive just like an ordinary data disk, only with the disk drive disconnected from the computer as far as data transmission is concerned. The EEPROM is preprogrammed to identify the loaded firmware disk, erase the old firmware version on the ROM, and write the new version thereon. In another embodiment a self-testing program disk is employed in place of the firmware disk, for performing a set of tests on the disk drive including the interface. The tests are conducted automatically as the self-testing program disk is loaded in the disk drive, again with the disk drive disconnected from the computer.

Growing community of inventors

Tachikawa, Japan

Satoshi Nakamura